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Saturday, June 22, 2013

Surviving Prom

My daughter went to the Senior Prom this week. She looked gorgeous. Her date looked very handsome and was brave enough to wear a pink vest and pink bow tie to match her outfit. They drove off to go to his house so his parents could take photos, then off to a restaurant, then to the prom. Simple, no?
Well the week before prom was a blur of pink fabric. The dress we bought (no I did not make this one) had nine different layers of skirt. Since my daughter is a 5'4" young lady, we needed to hem it up about 6". This would be a cinch. I do this kind of stuff for a living. Except, at my house I do not have a dress dummy that fits her size. So we marked and cut by having her stand on the footstool which we placed on the coffee table, and she stood there for ages as I marked and cut, and checked and double checked. We set up the dining room as dress central - we mopped and vacuumed and then laid sheets on the floor to avoid messing this dress with dog hair or dust.

I just serged the slip, but did a rolled hem on the underskirt. The crinoline layers were an easy cut, trim, re-trim process. But the tulle - oy! if the crinolines were wrinkled or folded back on themselves, everything shifted. Since I was just cutting off the four layers of tulle, it all had to lay "just so" or there would be a higher section.

Prom was Thursday night and we were ironing the gown Thursday morning. The dress looked good, and now I know it really is easier to build the darn thing myself.